Amid immigration debate, some question citizenship by birth
Maciel is 26-years-old, and she hopes to one day write a novel about her own life. She works two jobs, one as a waitress and the other a janitor at a school. During her breaks, she reads as many novels as she can to get pointers on writing her own semi-autobiographical book.
Her story is a common, albeit complicated one. She and her parents entered the United States without documents 22 years ago after leaving her home in Puebla, Mexico. After living as an undocumented immigrant all this time, her American-born brother has finally come of age and will soon be petitioning to sponsor his parents and sister for their citizenship application.
“My mother was four months pregnant with my brother when we left Mexico,” said Maciel, who asked that her last name not be used. “She worked two jobs right until she gave birth, she and my dad worked hard to make the money to give us a good life so we were not a burden on anyone.”
According to immigration law, as a U.S. citizen, Maciel’s 22-year-old brother, can sponsor his immediate family’s applications for citizenship after turning 21.
Maciel says her mother did not give birth to her brother in the U.S. specifically to plant roots here, an argument that is often used against undocumented immigrants.
“My parents came here for a better life,” she says. “It was a coincidence that my brother was born here, and taking advantage of his citizenship was not on her mind.”
But proponents of the Birthright Citizenship Act 2011 want to change the law so all children born in the United States are not automatic citizens. The bill, if passed into law, will require at least one parent of every child born on American soil to be an American citizen, thereby revoking the universal, automatic citizenship that has been common practice since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Only 30 of the world’s 194 countries grant automatic birthright citizenship.
The bill was introduced into Congress by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), a member of the House Immigration Subcommittee, earlier this year. There have not been any votes on it yet, but it is gaining support among Republicans, having generated 80 Republican cosponsors since January , according to govtrack.us, a website that tracks legislation and votes in the U.S. Congress.
“If [birthright citizenship] wasn’t abused, it’s one thing. But now it has been abused and it needs to be addressed,” said JoLinda Cogen, a former Republican District Leader in Harlem.
She added that automatic universal citizenship must be eliminated to prevent so-called “birth tourism.”
“Birth tourism” and “anchor babies” are terms used to describe what is perceived as people visiting the United States and then deliberately giving birth here to ensure their ties to a child with American citizenship.
“A concern is that we have a lot of immigrants coming here illegally, or legally on temporary visas, with the intent of having a child,” said Jon Feere, an analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. “Americans see that as an assault on our citizenship laws.”
But some find the term “anchor baby” offensive and believe that citizenship is fundamental right that has been granted to all born in this country since it was founded.
Claudio Remeseira, director of the Hispanic New York Project Center for American Studies at Columbia University, said the idea that people travel to America with this specific intention is difficult to believe.
“The concept of anchor babies is not based on fact,” he said. “Any research shows that people come here for the same reason, they come for the sake of making a good living.”
Jacki Esposito, director of immigration advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition, said that U.S. immigration policy should be re-designed to make it easier for people to enter the country legally.
“The reality is that our current legal system doesn’t allow for easy legal passage,” she said. “The Birthright Citizenship Act is unconstitutional and inhumane. Even those that are here illegally are working hard, and we need to stop having conversations that are useless and start developing meaningful avenues for people to come through legally.”
Feere said the Birthright Citizenship Act will draw a clear line on a federal level in terms of deciding who is and who isn’t a citizen, arguing that some states have been more welcoming to illegal immigration than others.
“Arizona’s effort to discourage illegal immigration has been better than that of New York, and a lot of states are following that lead,” he said. “So illegal immigrants will relocate to states like New York that are more welcoming to them, which will result in an increasing population with low skill sets and no high school diplomas.”
According to Feere, the bill would be the first step in designing immigration policy to meet the needs of the U.S.
“Immigrants should be admitted based on their economic benefit to the U.S., not family-sponsored,” he said. “It doesn’t make them bad people, but they are a cost on society.”
William Hart, a policy analyst at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, said that advocates of this bill are fearful and angry about the level of undocumented immigration. They believe that granting automatic citizenship to children born here to undocumented parents only encourages it, according to Hart.
“They also fear that the children born here will sponsor their parents, perhaps without realizing that this can only happen after 20 years,” he said. “This is compounded, I think, by a general anxiety over what many white non-Hispanic Arizonans see as the demise of their cultural—and perhaps eventually political and economic—dominance.”
Thomas B., California